Ex Parte Lewis et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 23, 2013

10907483 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 23, 2013)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
10/907,483 04/02/2005 Lundy M. Lewis 925.001US01 4483
7590 09/24/2013
Fogg & Powers LLC
Suite 100
5810 W. 78th Street
Minneapolis, MN 55439
EXAMINER
BLACK, LINH
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2159
MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/24/2013 PAPER
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte LUNDY M. LEWIS, GABRIEL JAKOBSON,
and JOHN F. BUFORD
____________

Appeal 2011-000296
Application 10/907,483
Technology Center 2100
____________

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, KALYAN K. DESHPANDE,
and BARBARA A. PARVIS, Administrative Patent Judges.

SAADAT, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Appeal 2011-000296
Application 10/907,483

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Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-16 and 18-20, which are all the claims pending in this
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
Appellants’ invention relates to a method and apparatus for situation-
based management (SBM) of a domain (see Spec. [¶ 23] – [¶ 31]).
Exemplary Claim
Independent claims 1 and 19 are exemplary of the claims under appeal
and read as follows:
1. A method for providing situation-based
management, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving a collection of events by an event correlator
process running on a machine;
inferring a new event or a new quality of an event from
the collection of events by the event correlator process;
providing the new event or the new quality of an event to
a situation manager process running on a machine; and
creating a situation based, at least in part, on the inferred
new event or the inferred new quality of an event by the
situation manager process, wherein creating the situation
includes matching the inferred new event or the inferred new
quality of an event with a collection of situation templates,
selecting one or more situation templates from the collection of
situation templates and instantiating the one or more selected
situation templates.

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19. A situation-based management system comprising:
at least one sensor to provide one or more events; and
data processing equipment coupled to the at least one
sensor to receive the one or more events; wherein the data
processing equipment infers a new event or a new quality of an
event from the one or more events provided by the at least one
sensor; the data processing equipment being further operable to
create a situation based, at least in part, on the inferred new
event or the inferred new quality of an event by matching the
inferred new event or the inferred new quality of an event with
a collection of situation templates, selecting one or more
situation templates from the collection of situation templates
and instantiating the one or more selected situation templates.

The Examiner’s Rejections
Claims 1-16 stand rejected under U.S.C 102(e) as being anticipated by
Jameson (US 2003/0107596 A1).
Claims 19 and 20 stand rejected under U.S.C 102(e) as being
anticipated by Anderson (US 2004/0034795 A1).
Claim 18 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Jameson and Jeffrey (US 6,085,233).

ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellants’
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellants’
conclusions.
Claim 1
Appellants contend that the claimed term “inferring” is described in
paragraphs 15 and 169 of Appellants’ Specification and is further defined by
“Dictionary.com” as “to derive by reasoning; conclude or judge from
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premises or evidence” (App. Br. 5). Appellants further assert that the cited
portions of Jameson do not discuss “inferring” (App. Br. 6). Appellants
specifically point out that:
Jameson discusses receiving a change event and producing a
new work situation in response to the received change event. In
other words, the change events act as triggers to which the
system of Jameson responds or adapts. Responding to a trigger,
as in Jameson, does not teach or suggest “inferring a new event
or a new quality of an event from the collection of events.”
(Id.). Appellants further challenge the Examiner’s characterization of
Jameson’s “situation” as the claim term “event” (App. Br. 6-7) and contend
that Jameson’s work events “are computer signals that cause work
operations to be carried out” (App. Br. 7 (citing Jameson, ¶ [0027])).
The Examiner points to the cited portions in paragraphs 291, 305, 380,
390, and 391 of Jameson and asserts that Jameson’s derived situation values
meet the claimed inferred new events (Ans. 9-10). The Examiner reasons
that:
Paragraphs above especially paragraph 391 is equivalent to
inferring a new event or a new quality of an event from the
collection of events because inferring a new event or a new
quality of an event is derived situation values are for creating
chains of related situation values or a new quality of an event.
(Ans. 10). With respect to the claim term “event,” the Examiner points out
that, as described in paragraph 12 of Appellants’ Specification, events may
be represented as digital information (Ans. 11).
We agree with the Examiner’s findings and conclusion that Jameson’s
automatically determining situation values from previously set situation
values results in derived situation values which act as “a mechanism for
creating chains of related situation values” (Jameson, ¶ [0391]).
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Additionally, contrary to Appellants’ contention (App. Br. 6), the derived
situation values are not obtained by simply responding to a trigger, rather,
they are determined or “inferred” according to algorithms using various
definition files (see id., ¶¶ [0392] – [0395]). We also agree with the
Examiner’s findings regarding the claim term “event” and Jameson’s
teaching of work events as GUI representations involving changes in
purpose, location, objects, etc. (Jameson, ¶ [0433]), which is consistent with
Appellants’ disclosure of events being represented as digital information
(Spec. [¶ 12]). We also observe that while Jameson’s work events may be
represented on a GUI, the events are initiated by a user.
Claim 9
In addition to the deficiencies of Jameson pointed out above for claim
1 (Appeal Br. 8-9), Appellants contend that nothing in Jameson teaches or
suggests “matching the inferred new event or the inferred new quality of an
event with the collection of situation templates stored in the memory”
recited in claim 9 (App. Br. 8). We disagree and adopt the Examiner’s
findings and conclusion as our own. As stated by the Examiner (Ans. 12)
and explained above, Jameson teaches inferring a new event and in
particular the disputed limitation of claim 9.
Claim 18
Appellants argue the patentability of dependent claim 18 by relying on
similar arguments discussed above and states that nothing in Jeffrey cures
the alleged deficiencies of Jameson (App. Br. 9-11), allowing claim 18 to
fall with claim 9.
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Claim 19
Appellants contend that, while Anderson discusses deductive
inferences performed by the Intelligent Agents (IA), the reference does not
teach or suggest “the data processing equipment being further operable to
create a situation . . . by matching the inferred new event or the inferred new
quality of an event with a collection of situation templates” recited in claim
19 (App. Br. 12). The Examiner responds by further discussing the cited
portions of Anderson in paragraphs 123, 132, 133, and 273-275 and stating
that the disputed limitation reads on the forward or backward chaining
employed by the Rule based agents in Anderson (Ans. 13-14).
We again agree with the Examiner that Anderson’s agent creates an
event when the new inferred event matches a collection of situation
templates or “certain security-significant deductions” during forward or
backward chaining (Anderson, ¶ [0123]). We are also unpersuaded by
Appellants’ contention (Reply Br. 4-5) that, in contrast with situation
templates required by claim 19, Anderson’s agent compares received sensor
data in forward chaining. In that regard, paragraph 123 of Anderson merely
discloses that “[f]orward chaining agents also may have data stream inputs
from low level ‘sensors’” (Reply Br. 4), which means the sensor data may be
available to the agents in addition to the inferred event.

CONCLUSIONS
On the record before us, we conclude that, because Jameson and
Anderson teach all the disputed claim limitations, the Examiner has not
erred in rejecting: (1) claims 1 and 9, as well as claims 2-8 and 10-16 not
argued separately, as anticipated by Jameson; (2) claim 19, as well as claim
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20 not argued separately, as anticipated by Anderson; and (3) claim 18 as
being unpatentable over Jameson and Jeffrey.

DECISION
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-16 and 18-20 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv).

AFFIRMED

ELD